Top 18 Fictional Planets in Science Fiction

Deserts, ice sheets, city-planets and one ocean that thinks. Some you could point to on a map of the galaxy; others you would rather not visit.

1

Tatooine

The twin-sunned desert planet of Star Wars where both Anakin and Luke Skywalker grew up.

1000pts

2

Barsoom

Edgar Rice Burroughs's dying Mars, where John Carter arrives in 1912 and finds himself able to leap over cities.

731pts

3

Ringworld

Larry Niven's artificial band circling a star, with the surface area of three million Earths.

643pts

4

Caladan

House Atreides' green ocean homeworld in Dune, the opposite of everything Arrakis is.

642pts

5

Magrathea

The Hitchhiker's Guide planet whose industry is building custom planets, Earth included.

577pts

6

Krypton

Superman's doomed homeworld, destroyed moments after its last son was launched toward Earth.

576pts

7

Pandora

The bioluminescent moon of Avatar, home to the Na'vi and a forest that functions as one networked mind.

500pts

8

Arrakis

The desert world of Frank Herbert's Dune, the only source of the spice melange and the model every fictional desert planet since has copied.

500pts

9

Trantor

The city-covered capital of Asimov's Galactic Empire in the Foundation novels.

500pts

10

LV-426

The storm-lashed moon of Alien and Aliens, where the crew of the Nostromo answered a distress signal.

409pts

11

Mongo

The planet Flash Gordon crash-lands on, ruled by Ming the Merciless since 1934.

409pts

12

Solaris

Stanisław Lem's ocean world, a single thinking sea that reads its visitors' minds back to them.

409pts

13

Coruscant

The Star Wars capital, a single city wrapped around an entire planet.

300pts

14

Gallifrey

The Time Lords' homeworld in Doctor Who, with its burnt-orange sky and silver-leafed trees.

300pts

15

Miller's Planet

The Interstellar world orbiting so close to a black hole that one hour there costs seven years on Earth.

300pts

16

Hoth

The ice planet that opens The Empire Strikes Back, defended by walkers and tauntauns.

300pts

17

Vulcan

Spock's arid homeworld in Star Trek, where logic is a discipline rather than a temperament.

167pts

18

Gethen

The frozen world of Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness, nicknamed Winter.

167pts